- "We burned every one of them, and used their vile books to stoke the blaze higher still. The bone-fires burned for three days, and their hot fat ran down the gutters like rain-water. It was a sight to behold."
- —Theo Kratz, Witch Hunter recalling the destruction of the Untersuchung.[1a]
The now-defunct Untersuchung was a secret agency dedicated to exposing and fighting Chaos corruption within the Empire. Training agents to secretly investigate, interrogate - and eventually - infiltrate Chaos Cults, this secretive organisation operated in almost every state of the Empire. Waging a secret war in the eternal struggle to eliminate Chaos, not many citizens even had the merest thought such an agency even existed. Regardless of such anonymity, the Untersuchung had been responsible for the removal of numerous cults, corrupted officials, the termination of Chaotic plots, all without the public even catching a whiff of something rotten.[1b]
The organisation often butted heads with the Order of the Silver Hammer, which abhorred the secretive tactics employed by the Untersuchung, and would viciously argue with the agency over points of jurisdiction and imperial regulation - even though they both fought against a common enemy. Eventually things came to a head, and the Lord Protector of the Witch Hunters was said to have received word that the agency was dealing with the very dark forces they were sworn to fight, and he received dispensation from the Grand Theogonist himself to investigate the headquarters of the Untersuchung. Afterwards, the Witch Hunters declared all agents of the Untersuchung heretics and enemies of state, and went to work apprehending all who were affiliated with the organisation; setting them alight on great pyres lined with countless documents that were said to have burned for three days.[1d]
However, there was in reality no such evidence that the Untersuchung had fallen under the sway of the Ruinous Powers: The Lord Protector of the Witch Hunters had simply disliked the agency to such extremes that he created false rumors of potential corruption, and possibly even forged holy orders to investigate the agency.[1d]
The innocent agents of the Untersuchung, that were not captured, scattered themselves throughout the Empire and are living their lives in complete secrecy, always under the threat from the watchful eyes of Witch Hunters. Nevertheless, there is still one former agent who still has not given up the crusade against Chaos, and some say that he roams the outskirts of the Empire still looking for other agents still sympathetic to his cause...[1e]
Source
- 1:Mark Of Damnation (Novel) by James Wallis
